Lecture by Leora Batnitzky, Between Religion and Politics: Recent Israeli Supreme Court Cases on Conversion

Join us for a lecture to be delivered by Professor Leora Batnitzky (Department of Religion, Princeton University) on "Between Religion and Politics: Recent Israeli Supreme Court Cases on Conversion." As a significant amount of American scholarship on the politics of religious freedom has demonstrated in recent decades, the very distinction between religious and political upon which proponents of religious freedom rely has distinct, if complicated, political histories, with particular, if complex, political implications.  In some instances claims to religious freedom, and especially acts of conversion, work to strengthen and even expand prevailing political configurations.  In other instances, claims about religious freedom, and especially conversion narratives, work to disrupt and upset dominant political structures.  In the context of these discussions, this paper turns to the vexed issue of religious conversion in Israel and in particular to a number of recent Israeli Supreme Court cases that deal with the intimate legal, political, and religious ties between conversion to Judaism and Israel’s Law of Return.  Rather than reflecting the anomalous, or exceptional, character of the Israelis state’s Jewish identity (however defined), the paper argues that these recent Israeli cases demonstrate the very tensions at the heart of contemporary American and international debates about religious freedom—that religious freedom is always between religion and politics, between the individual and the collective, and ultimately between the individual and the state.

Attendance is free, but an RSVP is required. To register, email iscp@yu.edu